dramatic about it, nor is there much to do once you get there, I figure that if I ever ran into anyone there, they would be someone I would probably enjoy talking to.

            My place is near the north end of the overly visited Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, sometimes referred to as “the best beach in America.” As M – 22 heads north toward Leland, Michigan, it is intersected by South Bohemian Road. There I turn toward the Big Lake and Good Harbor Bay. Just before this road reaches the beach and a small parking lot, it is intersected by West Lake Michigan Road. At the end of the right branch of this road, is another seldom visited parking lot with access to a beach and to a National Park trailhead that goes off into a forest that at the end of summer seems filled with every last mosquito in Northern Michigan.

            Back in the day before the National Park Service decided to carve a park out of this part of the Lake Michigan shoreline, a few lucky people acquired small plots of land along this final road beside the water. They built small, fairly rustic cabins there, all of which had dramatic views out toward the lake. Their plots of land were large enough to give them a real sense of privacy.

            The National Park claimed all of these places with the Right of Eminent Domain. The legal battles went on for years, but the homeowners eventually lost, sometime in the 1970s I believe. The Park Service removed every trace of these summer homes, even planting over the two-track driveways that allowed access. I go to one of those old pieces of real estate, about half a mile down the road.

            The entrance toward the lake is a narrow sandy path that probably follows the old driveway. When my wife drops me off, I take a cheap lawn chair, my pack with books, binoculars, snacks and a couple bottles of water. I walk into the second to last row of jack pines growing parallel to the water, walk in a hundred yards or so and set myself up in the heavy shade. There is almost always a lakeside breeze there, blowing away the biting insects. I stay in the shade, because I’m really not interested in getting a tan, or a sunburn on my bald head. I can see the lake, but none of the beach-walkers can see me. There aren’t very many of them anyway. I’m far enough off the small path that no one else coming in, intent on arriving at the beach, has ever even looked toward me.

            And then I pull out my books, my journal in case I want to scrawl a few notes, my binoculars so I can see the birds. I settle back in my lawn chair and read quietly, looking up occasionally at the sky or the lake or the jack pines moving in the breeze. A few birds come, but nothing unexpected or spectacular. Gulls, of course. Chickadees. A few woodpeckers. Hawks or vultures will drift by. I can almost be assured of seeing a bald eagle once or twice a day. I often doze off for ten minutes or even an hour, and I never feel guilty about it. I usually stay for five or six hours.

            Nothing much happens. When I come out, late in the afternoon, my imagination is filled with the lake, the jack pines, the breezes. Nothing electronic. It is enough to get me through the long drive home and the next few weeks. It’s worth it. See if you can find it.